Winter Maintenance Plan 2018-2019

The purpose of this document is to identify the processes, procedures and key personnel employed by Offaly County Council, to deliver the winter service operation for County Offaly.

Review of Winter Service Plan for Roads 2017 – 2018

A full review of last season’s plan was undertaken. A review of the actual journey times taken as per GPS trackers vs calculated times was also completed.

All engineering areas for the forthcoming season will have dedicated salting units (1x12.5m3 unit in the Edenderry Municipal District and 3x9m3 in other regions). The 3 Municipal Districts will be serviced from 2 depots – Birr servicing the Birr Municipal District (Birr North & Birr South) and Tullamore Servicing the Tullamore & Edenderry Municipal Districts. Brine manufacture and storage facilities are located at both depots alongside dedicated salt barns. The use of Brine ensures that all salt is now pre-wet and thus the volume of salt needed is significantly less than that of a dry salt operation (up to 30%).

The salting routes have been selected to remove (in a typical pre-salt operation) the requirement for refilling midway through the salting operation and to ensure that all 4 routes are completed within 4.0 hrs. All routes salted in 2017-2018 will continue to be salted.

Following agreement with Tipperary Co. Council some changes were made to the Birr North and Birr South Routes. Tipperary Co. Council have agreed to treat the stretch of the R445 which is within Co. Offaly running south west towards Moneygall as indicated in purple on route map.

Offaly Co. Council will in turn treat the sections of the N62 and R491 which are within Co. Tipperary North West of Roscrea and the section of the R438 from the Offaly/Tipp. County boundary to its junction with the R489 all shown in green on the route map. This change will assist better route efficiencies for both Counties.

The treatment of the R440 and R441 from Birr to Cadamstown County boundary via Kinnitty which was previously in the Birr North route map has now been included in the Birr South route map in an effort to harmonise the overall travel times of the 4 routes within the County.

Route Priorities

The Tullamore to Edenderry route via the R402 has been included as a priority 1 route in 2018/2019 plan.

The R420, Clara to M6 motorway has been included as a priority 1 route in 2018/2019 plan.

Priority zero routes have been included during extreme weather events following the experiences of Storm Emma in 2018. These are emergency corridors which must be kept open at all times and include:

Shannonbridge Power Station on the L-90357-1

Edenderry Power Station on the R401

The responsibility for the M7 Motorway was changed to the NRA (Now the TII) in 2013, but it still retains Priority 1 status.

Treatment Matrix

The treatment matrix was previously modified as the bulk of Offaly’s operation incorporates prewet salt and thus a reduction in the salt requirement for prewet operations is now the norm incorporated in the

It is the intention of Offaly County Council to deliver a coordinated programme of winter service operations on routes of given designated priority. Routes are designated a priority rating of between 1 and 3 based upon the particular class of public road, traffic volumes carried and the importance of the route on a national, regional or local level. The priority rating assigned to a particular route also has an associated stated level of service to be delivered on the route. This Year in terms of traffic volumes the following rationale generally applies: -